The CEO of the Dutch airline KLM, Marjan Rintel, said that the EU leadership should take measures to facilitate competition between European airlines and Chinese ones, NPO quotes her words .
She recalled that since 2022, Russian airspace has been closed to EU aircraft, which increases the flight time from Europe to Asia for European carriers by two to four hours, meaning higher ticket prices. According to her, Chinese airlines have received an “unfair” advantage and are using shorter northern routes to Europe and North America through Russian airspace.
“Europe can at least think about how to put an end to unfair competition,” she said.
Prior to this, some carriers had refused flights to China , in particular British Airways, which intends to refuse flights from London to Beijing for a year.
At the end of September , it was reported that foreign air carriers had taken up 40% of the Russian international transportation market, which exceeds historical figures. This was reported by Aeroflot’s First Deputy General Director for Commerce and Finance Andrey Chikhanchin .
Earlier, Russian airlines warned about the rise in ticket prices due to new fees.